Student athletes brought in $19.4 million in the past year
The NIL era has often felt shrouded in mystery regarding how much athletes are getting paid (and much of that mystery remains). But as more structure is put behind it, and as journalists get better at finding this information, we’re starting to get a clearer picture.
This picture this year? It’s a good time to be a Texas A&M student athlete. According to a report from KBTX’s Travis Brown, Texas A&M athletes more than tripled their total earnings from the previous year.
“A&M’s athletes brought in $19.4 million in NIL deals, according to information provided to KBTX via open records request. That’s an increase from $6.2 million during the time period of July 1, 2022 to July 1, 2023… Year 1 reached a total of $3.1 million.”
The article does note that the dollar figure for each year includes the full value of any multi-year deals signed during that year, so the numbers can be skewed slightly because of that, but it’s difficult to ignore the continued upward trajectory of NIL earnings for college athletes (97% of which is going to male athletes at Texas A&M, according to Brown’s article). It’s likely no coincidence that this major uptick in NIL dollars coincides with the launching of Texas Aggies United, A&M’s official NIL partner, in September 2023.
But while $19 million is FAR from a small number, it illustrates that many of the “reports” that often circulate regarding massive NIL deals are more fiction than they are fact. There aren’t many football players, even the elite ones, getting seven figures; Texas A&M did not pay $30 million for it’s 2022 recruiting class; NIL isn’t always the reason a recruit chose a school other than yours.
Somehow NIL has found a way to have inarguably changed the college sports landscape dramatically while simultaneously being way overblown by many fans and members of the media. And with schools paying players directly on the horizon, it isn’t likely to get any less impactful any time soon.